


The Admiral and the Commander

by katesfire



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:47:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesfire/pseuds/katesfire
Summary: Takes place during Endgame. A little bit more of Admiral Janeway's background and filling out the story of what happened when her Voyager got back to Earth and what motivated her to change the time line. When she was on Voyager, she talked to Captain Janeway about the future, she talked to Seven of Nine about the future, but conspicuously absent was any discussion of the future with her First Officer. Until now.





	1. Past Revisited

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgment:  
> I own nothing except the original story line. The characters, ships, and anything Star Trek belongs to Paramount, Viacom, CBS, etc.  
> For: The ladies in the Google Hangouts Conversation which we will call the J/C Smut Club for privacy sake  
> Special Thanks to my Beta-Sis Cheile for all of her attention to details. :)

Heartbreak had an odd effect on people. For some, like herself, it was worn like tally marks on the score card of the heart. Eventually, the scar tissue grew so thick that the heart seemed to take it in stride without skipping a beat. That was how she believed her heart had become: impervious to the pain and dark with jagged lines that were remnants of old scars. Those scars were so numerous that they wrapped around her heart like a cage, locking in any trembling of emotion that might have remained while allowing new pain to be absorbed right through without a flinch.  

Others wore their heartbreak sculptured into their face for the whole world to see. It was etched into the crinkled creases at the corners of eyes that no longer laughed and chiseled into the lines at the corners of mouths that rarely smiled; flirtatious dimples lost to fading memories of happier times. 

That was how he had worn the broken heart she had dealt him, not once but twice. She had lived with his pain and his sorrow every day. Even now, it lived inside of her, the one jagged edge that somehow managed to jut out between the scars that caged her heart and poked inside of her rib cage to remind her of the wrong she had done him. It was like its own little knife, slowly turning and twisting a little deeper with each passing year, burrowing a hole straight through her every single time she looked into his eyes. She had no words of comfort to offer him that wouldn't fall on deaf ears. No lamenting of her own regrets would heal the wounds she had shot into him as though she had wielded a phaser that could sear holes right into his soul.  

 Guiding them home at long last had been a blessing, but it had done nothing to restore him. By the time _Voyager_ glided over the Golden Gate bridge to celebrate her miraculous return, the jovial days of holodeck diversions and planet side distractions during shoreleave had ceased to be of amusement. Every day had become a battle to keep _Voyager_ operational; to continue to bolster the spirits of the crew and to keep the crew focused on their destination. Rumors had reached her ears that if they got to the twenty-five-year point of their journey and still hadn't made it home, some of the crew wanted to abandon the mission and find a planet to raise their families on.  That hadn't happened. Twenty-three had been her lucky number, the journey of seventy-five cut down to less than a third of the time.

It was her ability to keep her eye on the goal that had kept them going. When she had first found out about his and Seven's relationship, she had wanted to be angry. She had wanted to storm down the hall and claim him for herself. But she restrained. Instead, she packed away her bleeding heart and mentally released him from promises that had been made on a long distant planet. She had placed her heart on hold for him when _Voyager_ had returned to collect them and had expected he had done the same. But, those promises had grown thin with the passage of time—just as their hopes for an expeditious return to Earth were chipped away with every passing day. She forgave him for breaking the promises that kept her going and plastered a smile on her face to celebrate the happiness that their mission so selfishly denied her. She officiated their wedding and kept her duty as his "best woman", toasting to their prosperity and happiness. Inside, another angry purple scar ripped a canyon across her heart, perhaps the biggest yet, as she accepted what she had believed from the beginning: she was alone.

Losing Seven had been the final nail in the long built coffin that would come to house the warmth that had been once given to their beautiful friendship She had ordered Seven on the away mission that had caused her death. She couldn't have known and, and though he never said it, he could still see that he blamed her. It could have been any one of them, but it had been his wife. So many days after, she had wished it had been her. 

Of course she never told anyone that. There were privileges to not having a counselor on board.  

So, that's where they remained, in a contorted shadow dance with each other. He quietly blamed her while she retreated into an even more reclusive state while they did their best to keep up appearances for the crew. She felt they did a decent job of it. Her belief in her ability to put on a decent act was rewarded by the closeness of a particular, though peculiar, manner she had managed to preserve with all of them. They had been through something no other Starfleet crew ever had or likely ever would again. They were bonded in that experience alone in their shared triumphs and tragedies and there were things about them that nobody could ever be able to understand. So, in that way, they remained close, but none of them knew the insurmountable guilt she lived with. That was her cross to bear alone.  

She had thought, or perhaps more thought than hoped, that getting home would quicken his spirit and revitalize him in some way. She wanted nothing more than for them to be able to put the horrors of the Delta Quadrant behind them. She had suppressed and finally discarded any hope of anything more than a friendship between them and she wanted, or more needed, a continuation of that relationship. It was selfish for her to need anything from him, but it was the one thing she did need. They had stood side-by-side for so long, first as colleagues, then friends on the doorstep to becoming lovers, then just friends again and she just didn't know how her life was supposed to work without his friendship. 

She could live with the blame that still haunted his eyes; the heartbreak that darkened the warmth of the brown pools to consuming blackness. She needed him. And, he apparently needed her because he had taken an apartment in the same building on the same floor as hers. She remained with Starfleet. He immediately retired and did some guest lecturing and joined an anthropological study and an archaeological dig. They dined together often during those last few months, saying everything and nothing all at once. They rarely talked about _Voyager_ and they never talked about Seven. Dinners filled with small talk that ended neatly right before dessert and always after wine. They lived in this carefully constructed, simplistic friendship while he slowly died of heartache. In the end, after he was gone, she wondered if the continuation of their friendship had done more damage than good. Even after all of those years following Seven's death and after arriving home, their friendship never blossomed; even after nothing was keeping them apart but for the chasm of a dead wife. While that had been a big chasm, she had heard that sometimes relationships blossomed out of mutual loss and they had certainly both lost a lot in the Delta Quadrant. Maybe he had still been waiting for her to make the first move. He had been waiting for her to give the go ahead for so long that maybe he didn't know how to stop waiting for her and she didn't feel as though she could take the rejection if he rebuffed her. She certainly couldn't take the complete loss of him that would have happened if it damaged their friendship beyond repair. 

She made "alone" a strength. She had been there since she had learned about him and Seven anyway. With nothing else to do with "alone" she learned to use it as a tool. She hammered it and honed it until she derived power from her ability to detach herself. The sting of loss was less bitter when it landed on a heart that had accepted being alone. And, when heart break finally killed him after his long, slow battle with it, she was ashamed to have been awash with both relief and jealousy. As she stood next to his coffin, buttoned up and pressed in her radiant dress uniform, she was relieved that his suffering heart was finally at rest and she wished that she could climb in next to him and be relieved of her own trials. However, the universe wasn't that kind to her.  

Epiphany arrived only days later. New reports, new findings, new conclusions. Suddenly, a new mission was born and she had made it her obsession. She was going back to _Voyager_. No, she wouldn't be able to save very single member of the crew because that meant going back and stopping the mission altogether. She couldn't do that. She couldn’t make her younger self set the Array to take _Voyager_ and the Maquis ship home, but she could go back to a particular stardate and save everyone who had still been alive at that point, and that was far better than the alternative which had played out in her time line. When she had been Captain Janeway, she should have followed Frost's advice and taken the road less traveled and this time, she was going to see that was exactly what she did. 

She never doubted her ability to find them. The technology she had bartered for and then had to steal had worked perfectly when the time came. Her mission had been ten years in the making. By the time it had launched, she was a little cocky in her self-assured convictions that it would be a success. It would go according to plan. She would assimilate them all into her own personal collective if Captain Janeway refused to cooperate and force them. She was sacrificing an entire timeline.  Countless lives would be changed; some for the better and some for the worst, but that didn't matter to her. Her only concern was changing the lives of some one hundred plus individuals. It was selfish, it was shortsighted, but for him, she would have upended the universe if it meant he could live out his last days happy, even if that happiness was without her. 

What she had not prepared for was seeing them again. Seeing him alive, whole, and without that endless sorrow that sucked all of the life and vitality right out of him. He hadn't yet suffered heartbreak and loss. In fact, at this point, he hadn't completely given up hope on Kathryn, though his relationship with Seven was in its infancy. Yes, she would settle for his happiness even if it wasn't with her... well with *his* Kathryn. She... the Kathryn of this time line, would absorb the heartbreak; only this time she would be back on Earth in short order rather than waging war on the Delta Quadrant for another sixteen years.  

She found she couldn't stop staring at him. After years of seeing him struggle with his internal agony and watching it eat away at him, she had almost forgotten just how damned good he looked. He was devastatingly handsome with his salt and pepper hair and the laughing crinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Even at her age, she nearly swooned at his dimpled smile. Her heart quickened as her body remembered the effects he used to have on her. Until that moment, working side by side with him under the watchful gaze of her younger self, she had all but forgotten that she was a woman. Every inhale assaulted her senses. She could smell the remnants of his aftershave. It was woody with notes of cedar and as she breathed him in, she also became acutely aware that the air around him was perfumed with odorless pheromones that caused her brain to awaken long dormant erogenous zones in her body. She idly wondered how she had managed to sit next to him for so many years, flirted with him, had casual dinners with him, yet never jumped his bones. Under his invisible spell, she couldn't fathom an answer. _Voyager's_ mission had been important—but damn, had she been blind and impervious back then? Or perhaps it was just knowing what she knew that her younger self didn't that made her appreciate seeing him like this and not like she had come to know him in her time line. 

She had tried to conceal the disappointment and disapproval she held in appraising her younger self. She had expected that the Captain would trust her expertise and instinctively know that she, herself, would never undertake such a mission as to change an entire time line if the consequences weren't dire. But, she had forgotten that her younger self questioned everything and was a bit of a critic. It even took medical investigation to prove she was who she professed to be. Age, experience, and rank had done little to sway the Captain and she found it annoying. Her younger self was idealistic and ignorant, yet she refused to trust someone who was not ignorant of the coming future. And, even when she warned her of what was down the road, giving her a sneak preview of the future that she hadn't wanted, the Captain was determined in her stubborn refusal to take the road less traveled. She was being a cautious fool.  

Transitioning her tactics to Seven had been a bit more effective. She warned her against the harm that would come to Chakotay and doing so had been a calculated risk. Perhaps not the most appropriate of things she had ever done, but none of them had been forced to live with his agony the way she had. It wasn't too late for him and her younger self and, though she had her own reason to disapprove of her younger self, that had been her. And he had loved her. And she had loved him, even if she had been determined in her convictions to get Voyager home safe before indulging in something she could have had all along. The Captain still had her head in the sand. She knew that her younger self hadn't yet discovered the truth of Chakotay and Seven's relationship. At least she had spared her discovering it the way she had.  

When she had been the Captain, she had been oblivious to her Chakotay asking for rain checks on lunch and dinner. She had been locked in a self-imposed chastity for so long that she believed would last for the duration of their mission. Mistakenly, she had believed he would be right there waiting for her in the end. 

Her blissful ignorance had been shattered when she accidentally witnessed a morning parting not long after Seven had requested her own quarters. That should have raised a question in her mind as well, but it hadn't. That morning, she had rounded the corner to check in on Seven and see how she was settling in. She quickly made an about-face to conceal herself behind a bulkhead. Seven had been standing in her doorway, looking devastatingly beautiful in a short, silky red nightgown with her golden hair tumbling around her shoulders. Chakotay had been standing in front of her in his civvies, his hair still bed rumpled. He took her into his arms in one possessive gesture, her arms wrapped around his neck in the kind of gesture that vastly exceeded the boundaries of friendship. Those perfectly sculpted lips of his moved against soft rose-colored ones that looked still puffy in their fullness from earlier such activities. 

She had watched them shamefully but awestruck at how incredibly sexy the scene had been in its simplicity, while being dumbstruck over having been kept in the dark. It was obvious that this relationship was not new. She couldn't wrap her mind around the possibility that someone as juvenile in the subject of love and sex would indulge in a purely physical relationship. It certainly was not Chakotay's style, either. No, this was something that had been cultivated and allowed to age over time.  

The betrayal stung as sharply as it would have if Seven had been the _other woman_. She had made an appearance on the bridge then retreated to her ready room before Chakotay could arrive for his shift. She had needed time to work out her feelings before she faced him. After all, it wasn't her right to be betrayed. Promises they had made years before had faded into near transparent remnants. He was free to do as he wanted while her burdens kept her chained to the one truth she had always known deep down.

She was alone. 

Despite all of his insistence over the years, she was alone. She would not let the decisions that she'd made that haunted her with every death and every set back prevent him from happiness. She would force herself to conceal her broken heart so that he could manage to salvage some of what he had always wanted: a home. To him, that meant more than a cabin on a starship among friends. So, she would say nothing at all while he chased the dream they'd once shared with someone else.  

By the time their long road led them back to the Alpha Quadrant, there had been nothing left for either of them. She'd watched the celebratory plasma fireworks in shades of black and white colored by the weary cynic that seemed to have enveloped her personality. The impossible dream had been realized and she took no comfort and pleasure in it other than the fact that she believed the worst hell was finally behind them. She'd sacrificed and lost far too much to truly celebrate.  

That wasn't how it was supposed to end. Sure, she had been a celebrated hero and their contributions were vast and far-reaching. Her crew went on to do some great things following the completion of the _Voyager_  mission but far too much had been lost in the Delta Quadrant. And, when she had learned there was another way home, she was determined to steal some of it back. 

She hadn't counted on the effect of her own emotions as she walked among them once again. She had told herself it was just another mission. Nothing prepared her for what it was truly like to be back on _Voyager_  again. Realizing she still had another shot to right so many wrongs for herself where Chakotay was concerned, temporal prime directive be damned, she told the Captain what was to come. If she, herself, had known how much she stood to lose, she might have made different choices. It was the same reason she had spoken to Seven. As for Chakotay, she wasn't entirely sure of herself to know whether or not she could withstand being in the same room with him, alone. 

She didn't expect the chime to her quarters to sound. It still felt strange to think of these quarters as her own and several times she'd had to backtrack and stop herself from barging into the Captain's quarters. This was not her time on     Voyager—so yes, these were her quarters for now. When she invited admittance to the party on the other side of the door, she was expecting anyone but him. 

 "Chakotay," she greeted him, immediately catching the woody scent in the air as the circulation system pushed it into her quarters. Her body immediately responded behind the concealment of her uniform and she idly wondered if her presence and unseen arousal had any effect on him. If it did, his face didn't betray him.  

"Admiral," he replied tersely, "I am not here for a social call. I want to know what the hell gives you the right to barge into our lives and start meddling!" 

_Seven told him._ She studied his face, those lips; those dark eyes aflame. She ignored his verbal attack and moved to the replicator. "I was just about to have some tea. Join me." She purposely did not ask him but more issued the request as a command. After all, regardless of the fact that she was a person out of time, she still outranked him. She replicated two cups then carried them to the coffee table in front of the star field beyond the viewport.  

Chakotay suddenly didn't know what to say or do. The last thing he expected was to be invited—or was it ordered? —to join her for a cup of tea. He had expected a battle of words and wills. His Kathryn would have rose to the challenge and had taken offense at his verbal assault. The Admiral took his accusatory nature in stride, as though she were accustomed to dealing with bouts of temper from him. 

Suddenly, he was compelled to actually talk with her, to know his fate in her time line. She had upended the temporal prime directive so much that he doubted one preview of what happened if they didn't follow her plan wouldn't hurt. He wanted to know what became of him. She had already alluded to Seven that they would be married and that her death would cause him great pain. But what beyond that? Once they got home? Did he, that is the he in the Admiral's time line, end up with the Admiral? Did they have a relationship? 

A vision flashed before his mind’s eye—his dusky colored hands cradling her head, crowned in silver, as he kissed her and he felt the twinge of arousal and attraction. At first he wanted to be horrified, but he couldn’t raise such an emotion. She _was_ Kathryn Janeway, even if she was a couple of decades older, and his heart would still stir for her no matter what time period she had dropped in from. He considered her as he moved forward to join, just as he had done so many times in his Kathryn's quarters.

The Admiral's blue eyes contained a wisdom that attempted to camouflage the tragic triumphs she had experienced. The curves of her body he had memorized over so many long, dull shifts on the bridge remained even through the years. He had to admit, she looked perhaps a bit more fit and trim than his Kathryn and he wasn't sure whether it was the effect of exceptional doctoring or the lack of Delta Quadrant cuisine combined with a greater effort on her part. Somehow, he didn't envision that this Kathryn Janeway was living her life fueled on adrenaline, caramel brownies, and coffee. He watched her, watching him as he joined her on the couch and decided that he was attracted to her. Perhaps admitting it to himself would dispel the desire that seemed to be bubbling within. She was far more reserved and composed than her counterpart and he chalked that up to maturity. There was something most certainly alluring about her, but she was Kathryn. He should have expected as much.  

"When did you take up drinking tea?" he asked, wanting to fill the silence with something. Part of him wanted to yell at her. He had been so careful to conceal his budding relationship with Seven from his own Kathryn until he found the right time and way to tell her. Leave it to this Kathryn Janeway to foul up his best-laid plans. He didn't have it in him to yell at her, though. He sensed a depth to her that his own Kathryn had not yet achieved and, the way that depth about her frightened him, he hoped his never found it. Maybe the Admiral had done them all a favor by coming back here to prevent them from traveling the road ahead.  

She delayed answering his question, letting him take her in and size her up. She warmed within, and not just from the tea she was sipping carefully. When she raised her eyes to meet his, to drink in those dark chocolate eyes, she kept her expression neutral as her heart leaped in her chest. Mingled in those endless pools, she caught a glimpse of desire and she was absolutely pleased. Perhaps if things played out right, she could be the bridge between him and his Kathryn. The thought was delightfully sinful and for the first time in forever, she had something that burned inside of her and made her feel alive again. Substituting her younger self in her place when she left them would be accomplishing far more than she expected was possible so she didn't give herself over to fully embrace such hope, yet.  

"When my _Voyager_  got home, I no longer had the need for caffeine-fueled binges. Besides that, the Doctor insisted."

Chakotay had to keep himself from choking on his sip of tea before allowing himself a chuckle. "And when did you start listening to the Doctor?" 

She rewarded him with a smirk and it actually felt good to have an expression of happiness touch her face again. She remembered when she had taken pains to avoid Sickbay and therefore the Doctor. "Oh, about seven or so more years into this journey from now. He created a near mutiny after I did something a little too reckless in the name of protecting the ship and crew. Three days of no sleep, fueled on caffeine, he recruited you and Tom to relieve me of command. It took two weeks of good behavior and caffeine withdrawal before he would relent and allow me to return to duty. Part of the deal was that I had to limit my caffeine consumption as he believed it contributed to my recklessness and unless we were in the middle of a crisis, I was to get a solid eight hours of sleep. After two weeks without caffeine, it was just easier to give it up than to try to temper myself." 

He wanted to question further about what she had done. He pictured the moment when she nearly killed Lessing and couldn't imagine her doing anything worse. She had been on the brink of no return then. "It's good to know that we continue to function as a team, even if we did have to gang up on you," he said, carefully.  

She shook her head at him with a knowing smile. She knew what he was asking, or rather what he wanted to ask. "You made it back to Earth, Chakotay," she said quietly. She hesitated on telling him more.  

He was taken aback at how well she read him, but then again, she had him at a disadvantage. She had more years with him than he did with her. "I see. Something tells me there is more to tell beyond the fact that I just got back." 

She tried to keep the past, her past, out of her eyes but she had a feeling she wasn't completely successful. "Yes, although I am not sure that you want to hear it. Between the Captain and Seven, I am sure that you already know plenty." 

Then he really didn't know what became of him. "You never get over losing her," she told him, meaning Seven.  

 "I thought I already lost her."  

She realized the error in his interpretation and wondered exactly what Seven had told him. How could he have thought she meant her, that is, his Kathryn? Then it occurred to her that perhaps he never truly got over losing her. She avoided the topic of Seven. Maybe it was devious on her part, but she wanted to explore his feelings. It was another opportunity she hadn't taken when she was his Kathryn. "She still lives on the promises of when _Voyager_  gets home. It's what burns in her. She doesn't yet know that she is alone."

He hadn't expected to hear that from her. He wanted to believe she was lying, but what if she was right. What if Kathryn did still live with hope for someday? What if “someday” was sooner for them than it had been for the Admiral and her Chakotay? Here he was, indulging with Seven because he had given up hope. Moreover, the one woman who knew all three sides of the story sat before him, suddenly looking hopeful and strangely vulnerable. He had thought her impenetrable the way she casually waltzed into their lives and began trampling all over the time line.  

"I got back home, or rather he did. How could you say that she was left alone?" 

 "There are things far greater than death or broken promises, Chakotay. Sometimes being the one left living can do worse things to a person than death." Once again, she watched him absorb her words and take from them something that she hadn't meant. She left him to it. She couldn't bring herself to give him the full effect of the details because she didn't know how much damage it would cause to him just in the knowing.  

He had died. Maybe he had gotten home, but he had died. And, though he wanted to question further, he had a sinking feeling that somehow, something she had done during their mission had caused that death. That's what this was all about. She was trying to right wrongs she had done with as little negative effect as she possibly could. She had avoided the nebula just as his Kathryn had done and it had been a mistake. For whatever reason, this moment in time was the tipping point. Either they went home or they lived out her time line. He suddenly didn't envy her knowledge and longed for a way to ease the pain the years had caused her. He saw a single tear on her cheek and he reached forward as natural as can be and cupped her cheek, wiping the tear from her face with his thumb as though it could somehow wipe away the torment she carefully concealed within.  

"You're not alone, Kathryn," he heard his voice say. 

Her heart thundered in her chest, her blood burning in her veins as though the warmth from his hand on her face rejuvenated her. She inhaled deeply as she lost herself in the fathomless pools of his eyes. She would have been content to drown there just so long as she could remain in the moment forever. Then she changed her mind as he leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers, a kiss that spanned across the years and had a quizzical healing effect on shattered hopes and dreams that had been discarded across at least two timelines.  

He started to pull back, bracing himself for her response, but she pulled him in deeper, her lips pressed against his wanting, desperately needing him in a way that he never would understand. He didn't fight her off, he didn't push her away. Instead, in one swift motion, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. There was no pause as he deposited her on the slightly forgiving Starfleet issue bed. He was on top of her, the hard muscled body of his youth pressed against the still taut body she had expertly preserved over the years. Her legs went around his waist instinctively as his mouth strayed from hers and traced a trail along her jaw then down along her throat. She moaned, feeling the rush of arousal as his fingers found a pebbled nipple through the fabric of her uniform. She had no inclination to stop him as he found the closures of her uniform and released them.  

This was not how he had planned this visit to go and part of him still asked himself what in the hell he was doing. This was not his Kathryn, and yet, she was. Her scent, the curves and flesh he had only glimpsed on New Earth, her voice, her personality—though with years of maturity behind it, she was Kathryn Janeway. No matter the timeline, he would know her and his heart would still quicken at the sight of her, his loins would still alight with arousal at her nearness. 

He wasn't altogether sure if he intended to pursue getting Seven back after she had dumped him that afternoon. Maybe it was selfish but, before he went down that road, he had to know Kathryn. Not just as he did now, but know her more intimately. He had to experience what it was like to love her fully and completely, just once. 

He didn’t know how he reached the conclusion that the Admiral was offering him that chance. His suspicions were confirmed when she didn't shrug away from his tentative kiss, but instead latched onto him, starved for affection for longer than he cared to venture a guess at.  

She felt him drag away the concealing fabric and watched him as he gazed down at her nude form, heard and saw his sharp intake of breath. She felt confident in her body. She had aged since the last almost nude glimpse he'd had of her on New Earth, but she was no less confident. His reaction to her warmed her within. She felt moisture begin to collect at an even faster rate between her thighs as he pulled the pants down her legs, and took care to pull her boots and socks off. 

She had been nude inside the red fabric, to his surprise, but with advancements in uniform textiles, undergarments had become obsolete. Another invention of the Doctor. She wouldn't think about that, now. Instead, she concentrated on his hands as they slid along the tops of her legs, close enough to stir the auburn hairs threaded with silver at their apex. His hands continued their journey over her flat, toned belly then cupped both of her breasts. He leaned down and found her lips after whispering a single word: "Beautiful."  

Chakotay was overwhelmed at the sight of her. All of Seven's carefully, medically created perfection could not possibly compare to the natural beauty of the woman his heart truly longed for. No, the Admiral was not his Kathryn, but she was. Identical in DNA with shared experiences up until this moment in his time line. He knew his Kathryn was not ready to accept him, but now he also knew that when this was all over, he could finally claim her heart.  

The Admiral watched as the Commander shucked his own uniform and it was her turn to gasp in appreciation. His golden skin was inviting and he was sinfully delicious. She drank him in as though she had been abandoned in a desert for years without water, and indulged herself with a visual feast of his erect member. It was a bit larger that she had believed, despite a long ago glimpse of him in the shower when they had been on New Earth. She suppressed a smile, having forgotten about that moment so long ago when she had wanted desperately to find out exactly who had the sick sense of humor as to design an emergency shelter with a see-through shower door. That secret glimpse was nothing in comparison to the visual she had before her now. When he was fully nude, she reached for him and he came to her, just as she had always envisioned. 

He covered her with his warmth like a blanket, cradled her head in his hands as he kissed her, his knees between hers, parting them and then settling his pelvis into hers like a long lost piece of a jigsaw puzzle finally being settled into place to complete the picture. He rocked his hips forward against hers and then he was inside of her, filling her full of himself and completing her. He would never understand the rhythm of her heart that beat in harmony with the rhythm of his thrusts. He couldn't possibly know what it meant to finally be joined together with him after enduring what she had. Because of this moment, right here, right now, he would never suffer the way he had when he had been her Chakotay. His Kathryn's heart would never share the same agonizing scars that his did. This moment set them apart forever. A turning point. And should their mission fail, at least she could rest assured that his Kathryn, that in some universe, she would never face the perils of the journey into the future alone. After this, she knew that there would be no turning back to Seven for him.  

He could never have been prepared for the torrent of emotions that spilled out of him as he held Kathryn beneath him. Silver locks spilled across the pillow glistened in the dim light as he buried his face into them, his cheek pressed against hers, hot breath against her ear. "I love you, Kathryn," he breathed as he pumped into her. He didn't give a damn what color her hair was, her age, or the timelines that divided them. She was Kathryn Janeway and he loved her. 

In any universe, in any timeline, he would know her and he wouldn't be able to keep himself from loving her. They were cosmically connected on a level he wouldn't even guess at understanding. All he knew now was that their not being together would be tainted with the bitter taste of injustice. They had found each other on opposite sides of the law and he had followed her like a beacon for far too long to shatter her hopes and dreams of ‘someday' now. He would not allow his Kathryn the heart pains that the Admiral he was loving had experienced. He knew he wouldn't go to Seven after this. There would only be Kathryn. It didn't matter which one of them guided them home, for she would be his. 

And if they both lived to see _Voyager_ return to Earth, the Captain for the first time, the Admiral for a second time, well he knew that the woman he made love to now would be happy and content to see him making a life with her younger self.  He suddenly knew that goal was intertwined in her mission to save them. It wasn't just to save _Voyager_  and her crew, but also to save _them._

She bared her soul to him through her eyes and gave him everything she was. This was how it was meant to be. She didn't care if he was really seeing her or if he was picturing her with chestnut locks spilled across the pillow. He was with her, he was with _them_. When she returned to _Voyager,_  she didn't know that this was the homecoming she had been longing for, had ached for, had missed. As much as she gave to him realization, he gave to her the fulfillment of a promise that her Chakotay had been left incapable of giving. She gave herself over to the wave of pleasure and found herself arching into him, sensitive pebbled nipples brushed against his damp chest and she coalesced within, calling his name, scoring his back with her fingernails and leaving marks that she wasn't worried about how he would explain. 

He was lost the moment she came and he felt his tempo quicken, his eyes drinking in her beauty as she threw her head back against the pillow and cried out to him. He exploded inside of her, feeling her body greedily convulse, trying to draw him deeper and squeezing him with such exquisite pleasure. He pumped into her, shouting her name before collapsing on top of her, his chest heaving with more than just his labored breathing. Mindful of his weight, he scooped her into his arms and rolled to his side, taking her with him and slipping out of her all at once. He pressed a kiss to her sweat-damp temple, feeling the softness of her hair against his face and inhaling the scent of her. It was like his own personal aphrodisiac and had he been a younger man, it might have called to sudden attention his fading erection. 

"I love you, Kathryn," he whispered. 

She let a smile of satisfaction and contentment tickle its way across her lips. "She loves you, too." 

"And you?" he asked, not wanting her to believe what they had just done was a measure of substitution for his Kathryn because it hadn't been, at least not to him. Kathryn Janeway was Kathryn Janeway. He didn't feel as though he were substituting one for the other, though he now had a feeling that's exactly what the Admiral in his arms intended. 

She turned serious on him and allowed herself to raise up over him on her arm and gaze into his eyes as if to increase the force of what she was about to tell him. "I always have, Chakotay, even when I was her and refused to admit it to myself. Time makes you re-examine things in a way that you never possibly could during the moment when you are experiencing them. If there is one truth I can leave you with, it's that she has loved you since long before New Earth. She might be a stubborn fool about it, but that doesn't mean the emotions are any less there. Don't let that stubbornness or this opportunity pass you by, no matter what happens tomorrow." 

He nodded his understanding, then pulled her back into his arms, allowing the moment to hang between them in silence. He knew that no matter what had happened to her Chakotay, he was determined that he was going to be different; that things were going to be different between himself and his Kathryn. No matter what happened tomorrow, whether they reached Earth or not, things were going to change. 


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story can end with or without reading the epilogue. It does feature a major character death which results in natural causes. Nothing tragic or with extreme shock value ahead.

It turned out better this time. As she knelt over the gravesite and laid roses on the stone, she smiled. Yes, she was still sad he was gone. Even after five years, she still disliked accepting the finality of the numbers chiseled after the dash that represented the extraordinary life he had lived, but she couldn't be disappointed. And, ironically, she had herself to thank. 

Herself from a different time line, herself that sacrificed her life to be assimilated before ultimately being blown to bits where her final resting place would be unmarked among the stars. Admiral Janeway had left her personal logs, delivered the moment they entered the Alpha Quadrant with restricted access for Captain Janeway. They had been encoded in a file that had taken several years to decrypt. When Kathryn had finally read the logs from another time, a time that no longer existed, her heart had broken for the woman whom she had almost become. For the man the Admiral's Chakotay had become. She had come back, had righted wrongs, and for that, Kathryn could never repay her or thank her. As a result of her disregard for time lines, Chakotay had not died of heart break within the year of their return to Earth and the final date on his headstone did not read 2394 but instead, it read 2450. 

The Admiral had given them a beautiful gift of over seventy years together. Kathryn often thought it somewhat amusing that the number of years she and Chakotay were together as an official couple then as a married couple was nearly equal to the same number of years their journey back from the Delta Quadrant was supposed to have taken. Yet another gift from the Admiral. And, when he had passed, after seven decades of togetherness, though she had been sad, she hadn't been distraught. She couldn't be distressed over the years they had spent living and loving. They'd raised a family and even had a great, great grandchild on the way. Their lives had been full and prosperous and her only regret was that she had waited nearly eight years to start their lives together when she had loved him almost from the start. But, if that was her only regret these days, it was one that she was content to live with in trade for the second chance she was given.

"In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself astray in a dark wood, where the straight road had been lost." She spoke the quote that had long been a shared favorite of theirs. "Chakotay, my love, so long as I am lost in that dark wood with you, I know I haven't truly gone astray. In this time line or any time line, so long as there is us, I shan't be lost." Then she leaned down and pressed her lips to the stone, happy for the life they'd had that had begun with them getting lost then finding their way home, together.


End file.
